me that this was part of the reason for-
eign books have become popular. Shang-
hai Translation had recently published
"Two Forbidden Cities," a book by a
Japanese journalist who compares the
institutional cultures of the Forbidden
City museums in Beijing and Taipei.
The book was well received, which
seemed remarkable---in the past, the
only thing worse than an American
writing about an undeveloped city like
Fuling would have been a Japanese
touching on the China-Taiwan issue.
Such openness was even more strik-
ing in the light of the over-all politi-
cal climate. Reporters said that they
felt more pressure now that Xi had
come to power, and after interviews
they sometimes wrote me to check
quotes and explain things that couldn't
be published. Occasionally, we nego-
tiated. An editor at one magazine asked
to reprint an article I had written, but
I told him that it had to include a key
section that might be too sensitive.The
magazine held an editorial meeting
and decided that it wasn't possible,
so we compromised: they published a
Q. and A. that referred to the article,
which I posted in translation on my
personal Web site. Only once were my
words twisted for propaganda purposes.
Long after the tour, a reporter asked
me to do an interview for China Daily.
The paper then removed selected ma-
terial from the interview, ran it under
my byline, and made it appear that I
had written an op-ed in support of
the government. When I complained,
the editors removed the article from
the English-language Web site but re-
fused to issue a retraction. In the end,
I should have known better, because
China Daily is notorious for pushing
the regime's agenda, but after dozens
of interviews I had grown complacent.
And it was hard to gauge risks in a cli-
mate with such contradictory trends---
individuals seemed more curious and
open-minded, but the system had en-
tered a phase of increased restriction.
One morning on the tour, there was
a spare half hour, and I signed
books in Zhang's o ce. On his desk sat
a manuscript about the early environ-
mental movement in the U.S. It was
one of a number of books from the six-
ties and seventies that Zhang is pub-
lishing. "America in the sixties was a lit-
tle like China is now," Zhang told me.
"We're just starting to have an environ-
mental consciousness here."
China doesn't have a strong tradi-
tion of literary nonfiction, and Zhang,
who previously handled philosophy and
other academic subjects for Shanghai
Translation, founded the nonfiction di-
vision, in 2010. He told me that one
reason was economic---at that time, the
state-owned publisher was being con-
verted into a for-profit enterprise, and
editors were pressured to sell more books.
But there remains a strong academic
and idealistic trend in Zhang's titles.
Last year, his seven-book list included
"The Children of Sanchez," a 1961 study
of poverty and urbanization in Mexico
City; "Discours de la Servitude Volon-
taire," a sixteenth-century essay by a
Frenchman in opposition to tyranny;
and "A Companion to Marx's Capital:
Volume I." This year's list features "Cen-
tral Problems in Social Theory," "The
Working Poor: Invisible in America,"
and "The End of Economic Man: The
Origins of Totalitarianism."
While signing books in Zhang's
o ce, I chatted with him and two other
young editors, and the conversation
turned to translation. Somebody men-
tioned Sun Zhongxu, a translator who
had committed suicide two weeks be-
fore. Sun had translated two novels by
Richard Yates for the publisher, among
other books, and his name often came
up on my tour---people said that his
work was brilliant. Mo Xiaomin, one of
the young editors in Zhang's o ce, said
that Sun had su ered from depression,
which she believed was connected to
his translation work. "You don't get paid
well, and there isn't much credit," she
said. "I wouldn't want to do it."
I mentioned that I had known more
people who killed themselves in China
than anywhere else. "That's common,"
Zhang said. There was a pause and he
continued, "My grandfather killed him-
self when I was a child." He explained
that his grandfather, a high-school teacher,
had been attacked for his political ideas
during the Cultural Revolution. At the
time, he tried to drown himself in a lake,
but he lost heart at the last minute.
"Then many years later he tried
again," Zhang said. "We were living on
the third floor of an apartment building
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